Back to the past....riffing on THE PRESERVED

[alice wellintown]

But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the
kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is
internationally and universally applicable.

What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck
the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal master and
mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What
India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States?
All Loose-Fish.

What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but
Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is
the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to
the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but
Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what
are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?


On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 1:08 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> Probing thoughts. Yes, I think this stuff, right here is where the central
> political metaphor meets the human soul. Whether moving beyond our reach in
> the waves of the future or anchored in poetic condensation. Preservation is
> about the the deep values, the treasures. All that is freely given to us in
> life.The Golden Fang is about the acquisition of wealth and power. The
> vessels that  carry these things are both local and interdimensional. I
> agree with Mike and the wooden Nickel that this is what is talking to
> Pynchon in an argument about the precariousness of Liberty, about who owns
> this particular  ship, and a question about whether "ownership"  is the
> pornographic desolation of the thing owned, the thing desired.  Is liberty
> something we own or something we ride like a wave.   Are our treasures
> stashes of dope, boxes of paper with pictures of  dead presidents, something
> we hide from the state , something the state hides from us? Charley Manson?
> Real estate? Sex with Marilyn Monroe?  Something you extract with torture,
> protect with drones, vote for, pay taxes for, kill the wicked witch of the
> west for, pimp for, suck cock for, lick pussy for, kill the owner of the
> restaurant for?  Is it something that can be stolen?   Does the state keep
> us free? Did the state steal its freedom from  the people who used to live
> here, or do Americans have so much that they  just hand it out like
> chocolate bars and smallpox blankets and condoms?
> If not for the captain and his fearless crew the Minnow would be lost. Sorry
> Charlie we don't want Tunas with good taste;  we want tunas that taste good.
>
> Wave your mini-flag. It's a post 9-11, post modern, post poster, post toasty
> world.
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 23, 2010, at 6:33 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:
>
>> The sea, as image, symbol, refers to the unconscious, yes? It is the
>> Mother (Mare, La Mer) of everything, of life, yes? of thought,
>> consciousness. It is chaos, from whence all things issue into the
>> realm where reasoned order can be imposed, and it reclaims all things
>> in the end. One of the first and most deeply rooted of all our
>> archetypal symbols, it resonates deeply with the N. European psyche,
>> if not among all cultures.
>>
>> Is what is Preserved also that which can be said to have an Inherent Vice?
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Specultions on the concept, The Preserved within TRP's fiction
>>>
>>> 1) goes back deep in maritime law.
>>>     1A) back before and, mostly, outside the legal rise aand creations of
>>> nation states.
>>> fromBritannica Concise Encyclopediaalso called admiralty law, or
>>> admiralty,
>>> One early compilation of maritime regulations is the 6th-century Digest
>>> of Justinian. Roman maritime law and the 13th-century Consolat de Mar
>>> (“Consulate of the Sea”) both brought temporary uniformity of maritime law
>>> to the Mediterranean, but nationalism led many countries to develop their
>>> own maritime codes. Maritime law deals mainly with the eventualities of loss
>>> of a ship (e.g., through collision) or cargo, with insurance and liability
>>> relating to those eventualities, and with collision compensation and salvage
>>> rights. There has been an increasing tendency ... (100 of 6271 words)
>>>
>>> A ship named THE PRESERVED might be thought to have a cargo of what,
>>> human values?,---cargo that had soul since that was what, twice, p. 90, it
>>> was said to have lost--- preserved from the past? From before nation-states
>>> and modern wars between them? Fighting over the territory of each nation,
>>> whereas the sea was........open to all?
>>>
>>> .....we come from the sea.....Pynchon loves the water.....and some values
>>> associated with it, yes?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>       1A) Sauncho had a piece of a class action suit against its cargo,
>>> we learned in this chapter
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "liber enim librum aperit."
>
>